— Dogwashn. A project of minimal priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work. (Jargon File)
— Me? I'm just a lawnmower. You can tell by the way I walk. (Peter Gabriel)

17 May, 2009

Barrel scraping news

We've had the shock news that BNP leaflets use stock images, including pictures of furriners. (here and yet more damning evidence here.)

Today, intrepid commentator Rod Liddle reveals that the Cyclopean thug Griffin has a Lynyrd Skynyrd number as his mobile ringtone. (Quick, where's my copy of 4 Way Street? I need to play "Southern Man" repeatedly until I am cleansed of this horror.)

Finally there is the terrible news that the nasty BNP have cast doubt on the deservedness of L/Cpl Beharry's Victoria Cross. This one might have a bit more traction, though one does wonder why it's taken the relentless websleuths at Searchlight and their MSM clients quite so long to discover and report something published on the BNP website in August 2008. The BNP piece refers to third-party criticism of the award. I can't pin down any sources for this now, but I do remember questions being asked at the time (2005) and also feeling a certain unease about the extent to which the incidental fact of Mr Beharry's ethnicity was hyped up by the media and by the Government's spin machine. It struck me as demeaning to the man.

As someone whose own "military" experience is confined to a spot of toy-soldiering in the CCF at school, I'm not best qualified to comment on the worthiness of the citation. But several points do seem clear enough:

1. That in the media response at the time, Pte (later L/Cpl) Beharry's ethnicity overshadowed his bravery to a disgraceful and ultimately suspicious extent.

2. That there was a certain undercurrent in military circles that while his bravery under fire merited proper recognition, the award of Britain's highest military honour was unjustified and raised questions of an agenda.

3. That the BNP piece suddenly rediscovered at this convenient time reported, perhaps ill-advisedly, existing third-party, if unsourced, concerns. It is not a racial smear made up out of thin air.

If I draw any conclusion from the Beharry story, it is that this man's undoubted bravery has been cheapened not so much by the alleged and conveniently hyped BNP slur, but by the persistent atmosphere of institutional antiracism, tokenism and sly positive discrimination promoted and fostered so assiduously by our liberal elites over the past 40 years and particularly by the present administration. This inevitably subjects any Black achievement to a certain unavoidable undercurrent of suspicion of tokenism or favoritism. This monster is the child of bien pensant liberalism rather than of "fascist" bile. Had this man had been awarded a VC during the early 1960s, the issue of its deservedness would never have arisen.

The sheer level of establishment desperation revealed by the media campaign is quite telling. An outbreak of BNP-smearing before a major election is routine, but I cannot remember anything quite this relentless. It will serve the buggers right if a significant portion of the electorate adopts a "fuck you" attitude and votes for the BNP because of all the unremitting smear and the dirty tricks.

Frankly this is all getting boring. The meeja Johnnies are not really putting the effort in. Now if good old Piers Moron were still in charge at the Mirror, he'd have had a set of photoshopped images up by now, picturing Griffin, Darby and Kemp sitting down to feast on a dinner of spit-roasted whole piccaninny with a slice of watermelon in its mouth. Come on lads, show a bit of imagination.

About Me

Edwin Greenwood is the nom de souris of a Mancunian early baby-boomer, now living in London, who like so many of his cohort has made the transition from cuddly inclusive soft-left liberal into a grumpy old git who is quite prepared to call a spade a black bastard.
(The previous sentence may cause consternation to the Righteous. If this is you, read this and/or this before exploding with indignation.)